OAN’s Taylor Tinsley
1:20 PM – Thursday, October 5, 2023
A Georgia state subcommittee has opened an investigation into Fulton County Jail conditions.
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On Thursday, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones (R-Ga.) said the committee will look at root causes and solutions following a significant number of deaths at the facility this year.
“We’re not coming at this from an adversarial standpoint,” Jones said. “We’re coming at it as a body that wants to help have solutions to this problem and this issue that continues to grow, right now.”
The subcommittee will also look into what’s going on with law enforcement on the streets, backlogging in systems, and overcrowding in the jail.
The committee will be led by Senator Randy Robertson (R-Ga.), and other members include Senators Mike Dugan (R-Ga.), Chuck Payne (R-Ga.), Bryan Strickland (R-Ga.), Sonya Halpern (D-Ga.) and John Albers (R-Ga.).
While announcing the investigation on Thursday, Senator Robertson said they’ve already started gathering data and information related to the issue over the past few weeks.
“I feel very confident in this committee that it will be a very professional and detailed investigation into the operations and concerns surrounding the Fulton County Jail,” Robertson said.
The facility first opened in 1989. It lies in the state’s most populous county and can hold more than 2,000 inmates.
The jail recently reported its 10th death this year. Fulton County Sheriff Pat Labat has previously called its conditions and overcrowding a “humanitarian crisis”.
In early September, 24-year-old Shawndre Delmore was found unresponsive in his cell and died at the hospital a few days later.
Delmore was arrested in April and – like many other detainees at the jail – couldn’t afford to post his $2,500 bond, and was to remain behind bars until his arraignment.
The facility is already under a civil investigation by the Department of Justice following a series of reports of inmate abuse, including from the family of Lashawn Thompson, who says he was eaten alive at the jail by at least 1,000 bed bugs.
Several other inmates have died in Fulton County custody this year:
- 07/11: Noni Battiste-Kosoko, 19, was found unresponsive in her cell
- 07/31: Montay Stinson, 40, was found unresponsive in his cell
- 08/11: Christopher Smith, 34, was found unresponsive in a medical unit cell
- 08/17: Alexander Hawkins, 66, was found unresponsive in a medical unit cell
- 08/26: Samuel Lawrence, 34, was found unresponsive in his cell
- 08/31: Davyion Blake, 23, died after he and three other inmates were injured in a mass stabbing
In a separate effort to address overcrowding, the Fulton County Sheriff has proposed relocating up to 1,000 inmates to county commissioners, to facilities in South Georgia and Mississippi.
The subcommittee will hold its first meeting on November 2nd.
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